CBE - Information and Knowledge Management Guide: Referencing and Citation

Referencing is a way to demonstrate that you have extended your reading, learning, and comprehension by using relevant and up-to-date sources.

•  To let the reader know whose ideas the writer are using.

• To give recognition to the original author of a text, opinion, idea, fact, image, etc.

•  To enable your reader to check your information.

•  Sources confirm the completeness of the research.

•  Quotations and references lend authority to the argument, view, etc.

•  The source list can be consulted by the reader to verify information in the text.

Primary sources refer to the material the author has written, like all the works written by Shakespeare.

Secondary sources are written as interpretations, criticism, research, etc. about a subject or an author. An interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedies will be categorised as secondary material on his tragedies. The tragedies themselves will be the primary sources.